easycure

More than the melodies, it's about the overall approach to the piece... which is rather scattered, a bit elusive, really. Let's say that overall it's an album that often risks falling into the realm of stylistic exercise, no matter how creative and original that exercise may be. However, it's one of those albums that the more there are, the better off we’d be, that’s for sure :-) So I'm giving you my vote for the album. Here you go!

this album didn't manage to captivate me too much.. I find it a bit too "ethereal".. but you made me want to listen to it again :-)

great saints

P.S. Moby Dick doesn’t last 20 minutes at all. It lasted twenty minutes live, but on Led Zeppelin II it’s just over 4. Matt, to conclude, your review felt a bit cold to me, just a description, I liked the one about Mr. Big more! Bye! :-)

therefore there is a huge difference in relying on other groups, on a tradition and a culture, huge, and one cannot ignore this. Moreover, it is certainly not a matter of the sterile discourse "technique at the service of emotions"; even Dream Theater can evoke emotions... but then again, so can Tiziano Ferro. The point lies in how emotions are conveyed: Dream Theater does it in the most predictable, rhetorical, nonsensical way imaginable (my perspective, of course)... there is never a truly original approach, and in their most harmonious pieces, their pompous and conservative citationism tragically reveals itself, with technique becoming the only distinguishing factor in comparison to a banality akin to that of a disposable band.

This is the enormous, atrocious, blatant difference that exists between a group like Led Zeppelin and Dream Theater: Led Zeppelin even dared to plagiarize, yet their final result was DRASTICALLY different from the starting elements, in sounds, in interpretation, but above all in expressive purpose, and that is what matters. Dream Theater are servile imitators of years and years of tradition without ever truly organizing it into something different from its original elements. They are not an expression of anything.

Saying that the case of Dream Theater is the same as that of '70s prog or hard rock bands is a monstrous bullshit. Just as it is a monstrous bullshit the usual shallow, totally uncritical, and therefore useless statement "everyone copies from everyone"... ergo it would be legitimate to do so. Beyond the fact that Zarathustra (to whom I am obviously referring) lumps together Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Gentle Giant, and Area, which are groups that really have nothing in common. The most monstrous bullshit of all, however, is the one claiming that hard rock is just blues sped up. Sure, as if... pardon, you forgot the sounds, you forgot the completely different use of harmonies, you forgot the totally different approach to vocals, as well as the entirely different style of drumming... the fact that Led Zeppelin draws heavily from blues doesn't mean anything: Jimmy Page had been playing blues for years, and he didn't just take inspiration; he literally plagiarized blues tracks in half of the songs from I and II (including the famous "Whole Lotta Love"); but the point is that he completely transformed the blues songs from which he started... if you listen to the original "Whole Lotta Love," it has absolutely nothing to do with the Zep's version.

Surely all of this is quite in line with a lot of Metal, isn't it? :-) ..but not everything though...

I believe that fragmentation does not mean innovation... but the fact that they are fragmented and at the same time classic prog metal (and I intentionally use the definition you provided), fully demonstrates how their fragmentation never converges towards seeking new solutions (which should arise precisely from this fragmentation if there were awareness), but is used solely as a formal expedient that, if it were not so, would certainly transform classic prog metal into something different from what its name so explicitly defines. Therefore, theirs is a non-propositional, non-expressive fragmentation, but rather conservative, purely exhibitionistic.

Hi Marco: I agree that every point of view is debatable... but I think it's quite unproductive to keep trying to convince me that a band like Dream Theater isn't pure self-referentiality. Because historically and contextually speaking, I think it's really hard to prove that a band like them isn't totally self-serving. I believe it would be much better for a DT fan to perhaps emphasize that all this self-referentiality might have a meaning in itself, and we could reason about that... but I repeat, and this is what I meant by invulnerability, I really don’t understand with what hope of credibility one can argue that a band like this has historical significance as an expression of something.